The state of big data in 2014

It’s been almost two years since I took a first stab at charting the booming big data ecosystem, and it’s been a period of incredible activity in the space. An updated chart was long overdue, and here it is (click the full-screen option to enlarge):

Editor’s note: VentureBeat has cherry-picked the best of these companies to present at our upcoming DataBeat conference, May 18-19 in San Francisco.

A few thoughts on this revised chart, and the big data market in general, largely from a VC perspective:

Getting crowded: Entrepreneurs have flocked to the space, VCs have poured money into promising startups, and as a result, the market is starting to get crowded. Certain categories like databases (whether NoSQL or NewSQL) or social media analytics feel ripe for consolidation or some sort of shakeout (which may have already started in social analytics with Twitter’s acquisitions of BlueFin and GNIP).